Cone Bras Are the Freaky Forbidden Trend That I Can't Get Enough Of, so I Bought One
By April of 1990, Madonna had made headlines for her controversial religious connotations in the "Like a Prayer" music video, her penchant for marrying BDSM and Catholic imagery, and her tendency to gyrate with reckless abandon on stage. And yet on the first night of her Blond Ambition tour, she still had more headlines to make. When she ripped off her slashed pinstripe suit to reveal a custom-made corset bodysuit by Jean Paul Gaultier, featuring two cone-bra cups with embroidery circling each like bullseyes, everyone had something to say about it.
Madonna had reached out to the designer to create her wardrobe for the tour because she loved how Gaultier's clothing combined the feminine with the masculine. With the cone bra, he had taken what is often soft and made it subversively sharp. The bra was reimagined as not just something to be used for support but also something strong enough to be perceived like a weapon. The conical bra further proved that Madonna was firmly in charge of her sexuality and didn't care about anyone's perception of it.
Gaultier's original cone bra was introduced on the runway for his fall/winter 1984 Barbès collection. It was presented in the form of a velvet orange dress with cones that protruded out far more than Madonna's. It was the epitome of an editorial look.
It made women reconsider the image of sexiness they had been sold by destabilizing the idea. Gaultier proved to be sexy could also mean to be strong or weird or freakish, even. A bra didn't have to look soft and show skin. Despite setting off plenty of conversations, the cone bra was just that: something women thought about more than they wore.
No one has really talked about the cone bra that much since. In 2025, plenty of women don't like wearing bras at all, period, whether they're coned or not. But leave it up to Mrs. Prada to reinvigorate the cone bra conversation decades later with her fall/winter 2025 show.
This past fashion month, on the Miu Miu runway, the designer who has been firmly setting the trends for decades, particularly so in the past five years, thanks to her viral micro Miu Miu mini cone bras on a handful of models. The bras were different than Gaultier's in that they weren't really seen. They were more so alluded to. You could tell the models were wearing them, not because they were in your face, but because they poked out from underneath their long-sleeved shirts.
Everyone on the internet wondered, "Can Miu Miu do the impossible and make the cone-bra trend?"
I actually think so. For one, everyone right now wants to be a Miu Miu girl. And if the Miu Miu girl is wearing a cone bra, the masses will follow, even if it is far more unconventionally sexy than a teeny tiny miniskirt. Mrs. Prada created a universe everyone wants entry to. And if the entry ticket is a cone bra, the girls will pay for it.
